Week in the Life

Day 6 - Friday

What a disaster. I didn't take a single photo. How could this happen??? Sheer stupidity perhaps. I don't know. My excuse is school. But what should I do, not record a week when I'm at school? I don't know. Feeling very annoyed with myself. Trying to work out what to do. Just not sure yet.

The last couple of days...

Ok, so next year when I do the week in the life project, I am going to follow the great advice of scrappers that have gone before me and really plan my photo taking and filing a bit better. The last few days have been insane at school - IEP meetings, staff meetings... meetings, meetings, meetings. And did I take photos, I hear you ask..some not as many as I planned. I'm pretty disappointed with my efforts, but I will just have to journal more I guess.

So here is Day 4 - Wednesday

Ironing Marko's work shirt. Sometimes when I'm energetic I do them all on the weekend, this week was an iron-as-we-need-it week.

Coffee and porridge for breaky at the computer checking in with emails and blogs for inspiration before work.

First order of business at school is to put on the kettle, for another coffee.

A very long and exhausting day at school and the result is this, I'm in bed at 5:30 in the afternoon. I ended up sleeping for an hour.

My beautiful lamp.

The books on my beside table. Both finished...looking for a new book to read..

My m&m jar....mmmm

And here is Day 5 - Thursday...a much better photo day.

Alarm didn't go off this morning, when I woke up at 6:20 to the sounds of Marko having a shower the clock read 2:09am....not right!!! I hate feeling like I'm running late even before I'm out of bed. Really it was just psychological because I normally get out of bed at 6:30, however it's a decision I make to stay in bed and doze while Marko showers...

Showered and dress. Still in love with my new shoes. Love how they look with my gorgeous Lime green pants!!

Ah the things we put in our hair to make it look beautiful or at least not feral!!

Finally!! A picture of my teaching area. So here's the deal. I teach in a Special Education Unit. I work with two student with Autism (one profound and non verbal, one fairly high functioning), three students with Intellectual Impairments, one student with an aquired brain injury and one student with Speech Language Impairment. I have one full time Teacher aide and two part timer Teacher aides. I have two classrooms, a bathroom big enough for a wheel chair, a kitchen, a 'chill out room' and an office. We also have a fenced outdoor area where we set up obstacle courses for gross motor development. So this is where I do most of my formal teaching!

Referring to syllabus documents while finishing planning our new Math unit.

Not happy, spent an hour of non-contact time planning the new Math unit then accidently deleted the WHOLE THING... Here I am going back through the documents to the right page to start all over...

Now if only someone could design a shoe as gorgeous as my new black ones, but as comfy as my white stingrays.... they'd be worth a fortune.

Nothing beats a nice cold pepsi max while reading the latest posts on my favourite blogs.

Gym gear ready for when Marko walks in the door.

My new, insanely expensive, gym shoes.

Yummy, spag bol for dinner after gym workouts.

A week in the Life - Day 3

Tuesday 27th April

Ok so day 3 hasn't been my best day of the week in the life project so far. I barely took any photos at all. My main problem is that I am a school teacher and I simply can't take a ton of photos at school of me working with the kids... child protection issues etc. So I'm feeling a bit disappointed. I had the best day at school with so much success so how do I record it without the pictures to go with it?? Help me please.




My honey watching some morning TV before heading to work. Oooh chilly morning, had to dig out his work jacket.





My totally gorgeous new shoes that I love!! My insanely long toes.... hmm there is definately a layout in the topic of toes and my family... interesting thought.





Ahh my lovely pink hair dryer.. keeping my do looking good presentable.

Making our bed..

Mmmm porridge for breakfast..

Ready for school, and whatever the day may bring.

I totally love our car (that I get to drive every day).

Closing the gate so our mad dog Nugget doesn't terrorise the neighbourhood. Hmm no photos of Nugget yet, should remedy that and put it on my to do list.

The protype invitation for Lisa's it's-not-a-baby-shower afternoon tea. She flipped when I showed her...in a good way. Now I have to make 22 of the suckers... here I was thinking 15 might be enough....

I'm hoping for a better day of taking photos tomorrow and waiting for some inspiration to strike as to how I can include the student's without including them, if you know what I mean.

A week in the Life - Day 2

Monday Anzac Day Public Holiday

I had a busy and productive day considering we didn't leave the house at all.



Coffee for me Dandelion tea for Marko.



Marko's didn't look quite right when I poured the milk in, so I had to do the smell test on it.. Outcome: milk was off and I felt sick after sniffing it. Gross.



Cooked bacon and eggs for breakfast (traditionally our Sunday breakfast)



After blog surfing this morning and reading various posts on getting organised, I did exactly that. First I organised photos,



Then I finished organising and tidying my scrapbooking space/office. So very satisfying. Very pleased with myself.




Put on some washing.

What was my dear hubbie doing at this point??



Yes, he was sleeping. Poor darling was all worn out from his fun at the drags yesterday. Not to worry, I had fun reading blogs and tidying without him under my feet. Love you babe!

A Week in the Life - Day 1

Sunday

I went a little photo mad today...boy did I have fun. Hubbie was at the drags all day, but he did manage to get a photo taken of himself with one of the cars he worked on. Yay..I'll make a photographer out of him yet.


Below are a selection of my photos that I am happiest with.



An early morning drive to retrieve my camera from school.




Morning coffee - I'm a milk first person!!




Bed hair and pj's




Heading out to the Anzac Day Parade.



Army reserves leading the Anzac Day parade.






Anzac Day memorial service.



One of the many wreaths laid at the memorial service.



MMMM I love toasted cheese sandwiches for lunch. Not so healthy but oh so yummy.

A week in the Life project

All week I have been following Ali Edwards and her documentation of her 'A Week in the Life' project. I have been planning to have a go, but in typical Emily fashion, have done no preparation what-so-ever. I have decided to start TODAY - yes I am completely insane, however I want to document Anzac Day (today) in my week and Heroes Avenue here in Roma. I have no album size in mind, have no quick journaling tools set up and on Friday I left my camera at school! Not an ideal start to my 'A Week in the Life' project! So an early morning drive to school to retrieve my camera, followed by a coffee and google search to find out when the Anzac Day march starts and I'm on my way. I have sent instructions with Marko (who is scrutineering at the drags) to get his picture taken while inspecting engines and in front of some of the cars, as I won't make it out there myself.

Back to Ali Edwards. I just LOVE her blog, if you haven't checked in out and you are a mad scrapbooker like myself then you will LOVE IT TOO! I have been inspired by her beautiful layouts for a number of years now and own her book Life Artist, which of course I love. Until I read her blog this week about taking her 'A Week in the Life' photos, I had never used the timer on my camera. I have played with it a bit this week to get used to it before starting to take my own 'A Week in the Life' pics. I like how she doesn't clean up before taking her photos, don't get the wrong idea - her house is beautiful, but there are dishes in the sink and papers on her desk. It's real, not posed. This makes me feel better about my untidy home.

And so it begins...

Pleating Material for Smocking

My newest obsession is smocking. Smocked dresses are beautiful garments that have been pleated first then embroidered then sewn into darling dresses for beautiful girls. I have had many friends ask how you get the material to gather so nicely and this my lovelies is how!!

Step 1. Space needles according to the pleating instructions.

Step 2. Thread each needle with cotton. Double it over and allow plenty of length

(these threads were 2 metres long because I was pleating several pieces of material onto

the thread).

Step 3. Carefully roll the fabric onto a broom handle (there are proper dowelling that all the professionals use but Lisa and I just use a broom handle). Pass the broom handle through the arms of the pleater and line your fabric up with the edge.

Step 4. Carefully feed the material into the cogs. Wind the handle with one hand while keeping tension in the fabric so it pleats evenly.

Step 5. Carefully slide the material off the needles and onto the threads, then continue winding. Stop when you have about 1 cm of material pleated tightly and slide it off the needles.

Step 6. Continue winding then sliding the material off the needles until your material looks like this! Tada!! Now it is ready to start smocking!! I will continue to add photos of this dress as I do the smocking and then the construction!

It's Monday night, a school night, and here I am at 12:19 am still wide awake. What better time than this to enter my second post to my new blog!! As my mother would say, I must be worried about something if I can't sleep. Personally I think my brain is just over stimulated.

I have recently decided to take some control over my lack of confidence in my own artistic abilities. I love scrapbooking but find it difficult to trust my instincts, and as a result I inevitably end up lifting sketches by other more confident and capable scrappers. I drive Moira insane on Create-A-Weekend by endlessly asking her what I think of my papers, my layouts and my photos. No-one likes a desperately needy friend, and I tend to become that person sitting at our table surrounded by the talented ladies we know and love to scrap with.

So with that in mind, I asked Moira what she thought about me doing some classes. I know...the needy friend all over again. However she recommended the following classes, which I have signed up for, "Great photos with any camera" - Elisha S and "Design your life" - Cathy Zielske. Both are through Big Picture Scrapbooking (http://www.bigpicturescrapbooking.com/). I am really really excited about participating in both of these classes and can't wait to get started. I really just want to start right now!! So in the meantime I am trying to organise my workspace which currently looks like this:

Oh my goodness gracious me!!! Isn't that terrible. Well the good news is that I did lots of organising of my materials earlier in the week when I couldn't sleep, so this is mostly superficial stuff, all the stuff I didn't know where to put basically.

So my mission this weekend is to turn this disaster zone into a productive work area. I will make sure I document evidence of the monumental change that is about to take place. My new mottow will be "a place for everything and everything in it's place".